Cuban President Criticizes at UN Current Financial Architecture

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said on Wednesday that the current financial architecture does not provide the answers needed by the countries of the South.

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"The current financial architecture is not designed to provide the answers that the countries of the South need. The inclusive reform of this architecture is a long-standing demand in order to comply with the principles and purposes of the UN Charter and International Law," the president said at the high-level dialogue on Financing for Development, within the framework of the 78th UN General Assembly. 

Díaz-Canel said he was honored to have the opportunity to deliver the statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China at the interactive roundtable on the need to reform the international financial architecture to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

The Cuban president suggested the redesign and recapitalization of Multilateral Development Banks. He said that this would enable effective assistance to developing countries in a comprehensive manner.

The tweet reads, "President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez participated in the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development, which is being held within the framework of UNGA78. It is an honor for me to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China."

Díaz-Canel warned that the re-financing of the Multilateral Development Banks would not be sufficient to meet the needs of 80 percent of the population living in the Global South.

He noted that "immediate action is needed to urgently address the unsustainable external debt, which is dragging most developing nations into an economic abyss. An inclusive and effective solution is needed immediately, with the participation of all creditors, so that the countries of the South, particularly middle-income countries with billions of dollars of their own domestic savings, invest in their development."

The president also pointed out the impossibility of maintaining the delay in the rechanneling of unused Special Drawing Rights to developing countries, and a new allocation of these rights. Díaz-Canel said that the governance structure designed almost a century ago does not respond to the current context with respect to today's multilateral structures.

This implies the need to "reform the governance structure of the International Financial Institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund, as well as an improved global sovereign debt architecture with significant participation of developing countries."

In his speech, the Cuban president advocated the need for inclusive and effective platforms to design and discuss rules and regulations within the framework of the United Nations. This in addition to reforms in international trade that allow developing countries to have modern industries that increase the value of extractive and agricultural facilities.